Shinigami: Rushed Recruit
by LeonaWriter
Summary: In the wake of the Tropical Land encounter, Shinichi was left hanging in the balance between life and death. It was a good thing, then, that one Urahara Kisuke happened to be close by. One thing is certain - the new recruit has a lot to learn.


Shinigami: Rushed Recruit

Detective Conan and Bleach

AN: Inspired by but not really influenced by many things, including but not exclusive to Icka M. Chif's Shinigami Tales and Katty08's Romeo was a Montague. Except I thought mine up before she posted hers up.

Set during the first DC volume. Bleach-wise? After Aizen. May or may not ignore current developments.

_Injured with pain and sadness, the you that cannot be healed/ Shoulder the burden of the past that cannot be erased; don't throw away your will to live_ – D-technolife, by Uverworld

The first thought that ran through Kudo Shinichi's head as things started to come back to him was that at least he hadn't gotten a concussion from that hit over the head.

In fact, he'd had worse before, in soccer and karate practice. Worse when he'd been chasing criminals that had been that much more persistent and resistant to the odd football to the head that usually did the trick.

It was a relief. He looked around. The sky was starting to get really dark, now, the sun sunk even further behind the clouds and hidden from view by the Disney-like castle that Tropical Land boasted. Good. Enough time to go back to Ran and not have her worry at him too badly, enough time that the police should hopefully still be around so that he could show them the photos that were supposedly, if he had any luck left at all, still in his camera from earlier. If the man with the blond hair hadn't been smart enough to get rid of the incriminating evidence, that is.

They'd tried to do that to him. Shinichi smirked, thoughts jittering from _so close I came that close_ to _they didn't get me this time, see what I can do when you underestimate the modern-day Holmes _and back again. They'd treated him as though he was just another piece of evidence to be put away and never be seen again. He'd teach them how wrong they were...

He stood up. There was a distant sort of nearby jingling as he did so, but he disregarded it as one of the many attractions of Tropical Land making its rounds, and thought no more of it until he walked onward and towards the exit of the alley by the side of the ferris that he'd chased the man in black down, and the jingling – more like clinking, really – followed right behind him.

Half believing it to be a prank played on him by either Ran or some thoughtless kids who hadn't seen that he'd been hurt while he'd been unconscious and half not knowing what to expect, he turned around slowly.

The one thing he _hadn't_ been expecting to see had been a long chain that reached all the way from somewhere in the middle of his chest to –

His own body. The chain ran all the way from him to there, and it wasn't that far really, but it was far enough that only a few steps further would have had him tugging against his anchor like a dog trying to get that little bit further away from the post his leash had been tied to. Shinichi's eyes widened, a sick feeling rapidly starting in his stomach that was still over there, and had nothing to do with anything physical.

It all flooded back to him, and his legs buckled. That man with the silver hair had crept up behind him, given him a blow to the head and then force-fed him that poison. The one that was supposedly a perfect murder weapon, in that no one would ever be able to figure out that he'd been poisoned at all. Kudo Shinichi, saviour of the Japanese police force, would have been murdered. And the one who had solved so many crimes' murder would never be solved. If it had been possible, he was sure he should have been hyperventilating by this point.

A shadow passed over him, grew longer and bigger. He supposed it shouldn't be that long before the police were all over the place, closing the park down even if they weren't looking for him. After all, it hadn't even been twenty-four hours yet. Added to that the fact that –

A voice spoke, breaking him out of his chain of thought.

"Well, well. Isn't this the most interesting surprise. And in such a place. My, my..."

That. That was most definitely not the sort of tone one used when they first came across a body. Not to mention that the voice was coming from right behind him, not in front of him where his body lay.

The speaker moved unhurriedly around him, so that he could see their face. . . or rather, their silhouette. Shinichi gaped. Like the men who had attacked him before, this person was dressed in black, or at least a black overcoat. Unlike the others, his clothes were all of a traditional Japanese style, even including a spread fan in front of the man's face and wooden geta sandals that would hold him up somewhat from the mud that the oncoming rain was sure to make of the ground. A wooden cane that looked as though, if Shinichi counted himself as any good at deduction at all, as though it wasn't used for walking, or indeed just pointing at people. It looked worn, and had metal at each end. Apart from that, there was only the green and white hat that completely shaded the upper half of the man's face, making it an impossible task to read his expression.

At least. . . he didn't look like he was in league with the men he'd been up against before. Who'd murdered him. Which sounded funny, when he said it like that, but it was the truth, wasn't it? And there was that thing, that he was dead, and if he was dead, then how come some guy like this who didn't _look_ dead could see him?

The man bent down, peering at him from under that hat as though he was some sort of new puzzle to solve. It wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling. Shinichi watched where the man's head turned to with numb wariness and curiosity which had nothing to do with one's living state.

Abruptly, the man took a hold of the chain that had been let to drop to the ground at the same time he had. Firmly, but gently. As though he was afraid it would break. Slowly, ever so slowly – and here Shinichi wondered for the first time where the fan and stick had found their way to, because they were nowhere to be seen now – the man felt his way down the chain and away from him, more and more, little by little towards Shinichi's physical self. At one point, for no apparent reason, he stopped, still holding the chain.

"Well," he said, for all intents and purposes sounding rather cheerful, "I did say it was interesting, didn't I? You must be the first case I've had the opportunity to see where you're still attached to your body, but the chain of fate itself is weakening near the middle – no break at all, really, but there's going to be, sooner or later. I can assure that." Without any warning, the mysterious man's tone turned much, much more serious. "But what I can tell you that you'll understand is that without a lot of help, you're going to die. Even if I somehow managed to get you back into your body, it might not be that long until that weakening made itself into a full crack – and boy, would you be in trouble then."

Finally, Shinichi found his voice.

"What kind of trouble?"

"Hm. Well... you see, the chain of fate is what keeps you alive, so to say. Even now, your body's more in a coma than dead. But cut that chain of fate, and you die. No going back."

"That's bad," Shinichi agreed, trying not to think too hard on the matter and also at the same time trying to think logically. While including the new information. "But you're talking about 'ifs'."

"Well look what we have here!" The man proceeded to say, suddenly cheerful again and fan finding its way back into one of his hands, to make an overdone show of happiness. "Someone who's both spiritually strong and who's smart! My, aren't I lucky for being here today!" The fan snapped shut, and with it the falsely cheerful mood muted itself into hidden depths of mischief. "You're right, of course. And in that respect, it's just as lucky for you that I was here as it is for me that I found you, isn't it?"

"Explain."

"Hm..." The man seemed to consider it as an option before standing up with one finger pointing upwards into the air. "Hey! I know – how about I explain what I'm talking about once I've taken all your bits and pieces back to my shop! Sounds like a good idea to me!"

And then – without asking Shinichi's own permission at all – the absolute stranger picked up his body, chain of fate still attached, and started to run.

Of course, Shinichi ran after him. Why wouldn't he, since it was his own body the guy was getting away with? Slowly, bit by bit, harder at first and easier later on, he didn't realise at first that it was getting less and less difficult to keep up with the man. And he definitely didn't realise that the scenery had started to blur by that point.

"OI! Where the hell did you get off to? You'd better be here, Hat 'n' Clogs, or else I'm gonna-"

The orange haired teen who'd just barged into the shop paused and blinked. Shinichi stared back. Crossed his arms, and added in a bit of defiance when he could just see the next question from having been on too many crime scenes where Megure-keibu wasn't.

"Huh. Who the heck's the new kid?"

Shinichi scowled.

"The name's Kudo Shinichi," he said. Normally he wouldn't be as cold or irritable, but this wasn't a normal situation. He was, apparently, dead, for one. "Detective."

The older teen smirked, but to Shinichi it looked like it had at least a small amount of pity in it. Too bad that Shinichi wasn't looking for pity at the moment, or compassion. He was _dead_. He couldn't even imagine what this was doing to Ran, even if she didn't know yet.

"Got yourself into something way over your head, right?" The other boy said as he came towards Shinichi with the intention of brushing past. He was dressed in loose jeans, trainers and a jacket over a t-shirt that said, in a stylised font, _Higher Than The Moon_.

Shinichi was almost about to retort something back, but he was cut off before he could get a single word out by the man who he'd followed here, and had taken to the back room with his body – and he didn't think that he would _ever_ get used to that.

"Ah-ah! We're working on that, Kurosaki-san! Plus-san!"

"_OI_," Kurosaki – as that did appear to be his name – called back, uncaring that he sounded extremely rude as he did so, "this plus does actually have a name, you know!"

"Of course he does, Kurosaki-san! That's why you used it just then! Ah, plus-san? If you could come here it'd be much appreciated..."

Shinichi shot another look at Kurosaki – wondering yet again how people who seemed to be alive could see people who seemed not to be, as he'd never noticed any ghosts or whatever he was now when he'd been properly alive – and made his way over to where the still unnamed man in the hat was mostly by following the chain that still lead from one part of him to the other. From the footsteps and muttering he could hear behind him, it was obvious that Kurosaki was following.

When he pushed back the thin sliding door the rest of the way, it was to the sight of the man still bent over slightly. And was it his imagination, or were the clothes on his – other? Living? – physical body that much more _loose_ than before?

"Kurosaki-san too? Well, I suppose it's all for the better, hm... After all, one of those possibilities includes you two seeing quite a bit more of each other."

Shinichi and Kurosaki shared a confused, doubting look. Then, Kurosaki seemed to begin to understand something, and he turned back to the man in the hat with an angry look on his face.

"What the hell-! You can't seriously be thinking of that! You already said you were coming up with something – I at least thought that meant some kind of scheme that'd keep the kid alive!"

"Oh, did I say that? Oops..."

Immediately, Shinichi put aside his momentary irritation of being called 'kid' all the time by Kurosaki in favour of joining the older teen in glaring at the offender.

"Maa, maa... Don't get all worked up, now. Let me at least explain. Plus-san here-"

"Kudo Shinichi," Shinichi supplied.

"Kudo-san, then," the man allowed, seemingly unfazed, "should have died back there. But the interesting thing is that he didn't, as you can see. Not completely, anyway, since there was a thousand to one chance that he might survive. I merely helped that along."

"So the guy's not actually dead yet," Kurosaki said, butting in. "Doesn't that usually mean you can just shove him back in his body and have done with it?"

"Usually, yes. But Kudo-san had already been exposed to the poison for quite a while before I could actually do anything about it. His body responded in a rather spectacular way that I had _absolutely_ no control over-"

Kurosaki snorted, muttering something to the effect of "As if."

"-and not to mention that his chain of fate is already rather weaker than I'd like... reversing the situation now is not something I'd particularly like to try, even if I did know how."

At this, Kurosaki started to look speculative after his initial surprise, and Shinichi started _thinking_ again.

"Wait," he said. "You mean to say that even after all this, I might still die if I went back into my body?"

"Not immediately, no. However, all it would take would be a large shock to your system. Anything that might cause you to be out of your body for a second time would do the job and finish you off – and given your physical self's current state, I'll be the first to say it wouldn't be all that hard."

That speculative look on Kurosaki's face was starting to make Shinichi worry. It had begun to turn into a considering frown, and the younger teen did not like it one bit.

"I think I get it," Kurosaki said slowly. "That's why... damn. That's gotta sting." A hand made its way through the older teen's orange shock of hair. "So he'd basically be easy pickings for the hollows if that happened – that, and if his chain's already weak, it'd probably encroach real fast. And I'm not even taking what you just did into account."

Encroach? Hollows? Shinichi didn't know what either term meant, but he had a nasty feeling he'd be getting very familiar with them extremely rapidly.

"Yet his body is still alive..."

"And I still can't believe you're suggesting this," Kurosaki said. But whatever it was, he didn't seem to be quite as against it as he had been before. Then – "What's in it for you?"

As if the one most involved in the decision wasn't just standing there and plainly able to hear everything they said.

"Me? Oh, nothing much. I simply find Kudo-san. . . interesting. Plus, I don't think the Gotei have ever had a detective before! Not to mention," said the man in the hat rather coyly, "he managed to keep up with me at a fair pace on the way here."

. . . and now both of them were staring at him, and he wished that for once they'd stop, and he crossed his arms again.

"What?"

"Oi, kid." That was Kurosaki. He was wearing a suspicious looking smirk. "How d'you feel about becoming a Shinigami?"

Shinichi blinked. Death god? He'd once heard a couple of the less discreet men on the police force refer to him as one, but he didn't think they'd ever meant it literally.

The man with the hat's fan appeared out of nowhere, and he started to wave it in front of his face, obscuring most of the rest of what had been visible.

"You'll have to make your choice fairly quickly. . . all this dilly-dallying isn't doing your chain of fate any good."

Shinichi turned towards Kurosaki, since the other boy seemed to be more likely to give him a direct answer than the man he'd followed here.

"If I did," he asked, "What would it do to me, and what would I have to do?"

"Well – for one thing, if you weren't able to before, you'll be able to see spirits. And trust me, they're sometimes just plain everywhere. They're usually harmless, but then there're hollows, and they're far from harmless. I mean, as a Shinigami you'd be able to take them on when you're out of your body, but that's really only if you've got a zanpakuto unless you've got some weird other kind of power you can use against them, and... uh. Not much more than that. I mean, _I'm_ a Shinigami, but then I'm kind of the exception as well."

"I'd still be alive?"

Kurosaki snorted. "As much as I am." He seemed to consider something. "Just to warn you – it's pretty much a do or die situation. Once you start going for it, there's no going back. Either you've got it or you don't. If you really don't got it, you can't just go back to doing what you did before, or even go back to that life. It's one of two options. Shinigami or on to Soul Society."

Shinichi swallowed hard. It seemed like a lot to take in. But he'd rather take the chance that was offered to him and possibly be able to go back to Ran before she started to worry too badly than not take it and live the rest of his life in fear of whatever else came his way.

"I'll do it," he said.

He hoped he hadn't just made a very big mistake.

Shinichi wondered briefly what the world had come to when he found there to be a large, natural looking training area right underneath the shop the hat man – that is, Urahara-san, since they'd been informally introduced while on the way down – owned. He hadn't said anything, however, choosing to leave that to the owner and instead rolled his eyes with Kurosaki, who had told Shinichi that his first name was Ichigo. And who was now wearing what he could only assume was his shihakusho, traditional garments of mostly black and white. That wasn't even taking the massive cleaver-style sword on his back into account, either. The boy's body was now resting propped up in a back room of the shop, watched over by at least one of the shop's assistants. Shinichi tried not to think too hard on it, even as or especially since they'd brought his own body down with them also.

Which had seemed much too light, and far smaller than he'd ever thought it had been before. At the very least, smaller than he was now when standing up.

"Any last minute pieces of advice?"

Kurosaki glanced over at him.

"Yeah. One – don't panic. Hell, that goes for just about all of this. And believe me, I know from experience that not panicking is kinda hard when you go through this. But if you could stay calm, that'd be a good thing. Number two, there _is_ a point to the whole exercise. _Don't_ ignore the fact that some things are supposed to be impossible – if you do, you'll just be wasting valuable time. You're supposed to become a Shinigami because of this. Shinigami do things differently. If you hadn't already guessed," he added sarcastically. "Three. Don't be afraid. Once you've gone past the point of no return, there's no place for fear. Don't look back."

"And number four?" Shinichi asked, not entirely sure what all of that meant, but making sure that he remembered it. It was probably going to make sense later, he supposed.

Ichigo grinned at him.

"Shinigami have red soul ribbons."

Shinichi shook his head in bemusement, having even less of an idea of what that meant, and hoping that he could figure it out and put all of the pieces of the puzzle together before it was too late.

He only just noticed that, as he had kept on walking, the others had stopped a short way away. He turned around.

"So, uh, what happens next?"

Apparently, a blur of motion composed of black, white and orange that caused him to take a step backwards due to how close it was, a wind picking up due to air displacement that tousled his hair and made his eyes water. It was over in seconds, and once the dust was cleared well enough that he could see properly again, he stared at the ground in front of him in abject horror, which quickly turned into anger.

"You – you... What the hell did you do that for? That was my-!"

Everything else he had been about to say was then cut off – not by either of the perpetrators, Kurosaki and Urahara with serious looks on their faces, but by the fact that the very ground itself disappeared from beneath him.

After falling, he hit hard earth packed with dirt, dust and rocks rather uncomfortably, but unsurprisingly didn't stay feeling hurt for very long.

For a long time, Shinichi simply fumed. He had thought that they were going to help him, and then they did this. Granted, he didn't understand exactly what they meant most of the time, but you generally assume that to keep someone alive, you don't just kill them as the next thing you do. He hardened his resolve, however, and made to stand, the better to pace and think.

"Ne, Kudo-san."

He didn't respond, but he was listening.

"This is lesson two," the carefree voice continued. "To be a Shinigami, all you've got to do is get out of that there hole! Easy peasy for a Shinigami, of course..."

Rather fainter, he could hear Kurosaki's voice, complaining.

"When I was down there, you even had my hands tied back..."

"Maa, well. I somehow doubt Kudo-san here has that same ability for growth that you do, hm? After all, you were the one who gave him all of those hints that you didn't have, either."

A pause in the banter.

"I suppose so. Hey, I didn't even know you still had that hole down here, anyway."

"Why of course you didn't. I had Ururu-chan dig it all back up for me before we came down here, of course."

"Yeah, right. I should've known."

And then, they got fainter and fainter until he couldn't hear them any more.

Only now did he understand Kurosaki's earlier words – it was all too easy to panic. All too easy to loose his cool or simply fall into despair. To wish that he hadn't taken this option after all, because surely it was better to have some chance at life than none at all, right?

But then, finally and at long last, his brain kicked in again, reminding him of a fact that had been waving itself in front of his face ever since Kurosaki Ichigo had first appeared. The other boy – older, snarkier and overall more experienced in these types of thing – had said straight out that he himself was in fact a Shinigami, the same as what Shinichi himself had been talked into aiming towards. Which should therefore mean that they hadn't lied to him – that if he did succeed, then there would be some way that he could regain his life. . . not as it had been before, perhaps, but the fact that he would still be alive in some way would surely override that small matter.

_All right_, he thought to himself in an effort to use his head, _you're finding this difficult to deal with_. _So let's just get rid of the whole alive-and-dead thing and just go with the information you've got. Treat it like it's a case. Just a normal, ordinary people puzzle_...

When he did that, things started to make a slight bit more sense.

Kurosaki had said, first and foremost, that panicking was out of the question. He hadn't explained why precisely, but his and Urahara's other words and actions ever since Shinichi had met them indicated that the main reason for this was that to panic was to waste time, and it was implied strongly that he was on a very deadly time limit. So. Keep calm. Kind of hard to do when you're at the bottom of a deep hole in the ground in a basement and you're just waiting for the inevitable.

An inevitable that, supposedly, he was supposed to be able to somehow stop from happening. How, he didn't know. But something told him that it had to do with what the others had been talking about. Apparently, it was something that a human (or at least, a human soul) couldn't do, but a Shinigami could.

So of course, the obvious answer was to beat them at their own game and do what he'd unwittingly been put in this position to do – unlock whatever power they thought he had.

With that thought, he sat down with a thump onto the hard-packed earth that was the bottom of the hole he'd been dumped into. Making an attempt to control his spiritual body's breathing, he started trying to focus. The problem there was that he didn't know what to focus on.

A few hundred yards away, Kurosaki Ichigo and Urahara Kisuke were sat on two very conveniently placed rocks, looking half bored and half interested. Urahara turned his shaded eyes towards Ichigo.

"Ne, Kurosaki-san. How long do you think it's been already?"

Ichigo looked up, jolted out of his own thoughts, and lifted his wrist before remembering that his watch was back in the shop with his physical body. He dropped the arm back down and thought for a moment.

"A few hours at least, I think," he said with a grunt.

"Hm. . . well, at least he's certainly quieter than you were."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

"And he hasn't tried running up the sides, either."

Ichigo went red from both embarrassment and anger.

"For your information, I made about ten feet back then! I couldn't done if I'd had my hands free!"

Urahara simply shook his head in amusement.

"Seriously, though," he said, tone mirroring his words, "his first encroachment should be coming soon, if it hasn't already."

Ichigo's expression turned dark, and he felt a flicker of interest from the depths of his mind that he did his best to ignore.

"Yeah," he said, belying how he felt with a carefree attitude. "But he's still got at least a couple more days, right?"

Urahara nodded.

"Something like that."

"...Right. Then I'm off – I'm stiff, I'm sore, and I'm bored. Not to mention hungry – oh, and what I came in here for? Your paperwork's overdue again, _captain_."

And with that, he left, leaving an apparently desolate Urahara behind him to watch over the detective – just as the first startled yelps could be heard coming from down at the bottom of the hole in the ground.

Ichigo had a funny feeling the kid was going to make the grade, though. He'd be more surprised if someone Urahara Kisuke, currently captain of the new, mostly unofficial Division Fourteen. Because none of the other divisions would accept most of the Shinigami Fourteen was made up of – and for the most part, the term 'Shinigami' was only used as a title among them. Arrancar were still generally thought of as Arrancar, and you couldn't get either Ulquiorra or Grimmjow into shihakusho for anything. Nel, or rather, Neliel, as she went by now that Orihime had properly healed her mask, switched between the two by whim. Orihime herself didn't overly mind too much what she wore when she was in Soul Society, but generally stuck with her normal clothes. Chad was the same, not really bothering to make any kind of change about himself. Ishida was. . . Ishida. And still wouldn't wear anything other than that stupid Quincy outfit, which got him a whole load of stares wherever he went, whether it was in the real world or in Soul Society.

And then, of course, there was Ichigo himself, who called himself a Shinigami yet was claimed by the Vaizard – who still insisted on having nothing directly to do with the Gotei Thirteen – and whose other half had been marked as Arrancar. Who had been thought of as the _perfect_ messenger boy and envoy for any and every of the above parties. Even the real world, since he was technically still alive.

Ichigo, as had been predicted, had not been happy with the idea. But eventually – after much cajoling and irritation and no little blackmail – he had relented, and become the Fourteenth's lieutenant. Luckily, it was a post where he didn't have to actually do much, due to the division being mostly unofficial. Generally the worst he had to do was give reports and remind Urahara to do his paperwork. He was usually left in peace. Relative peace, for a Shinigami.

But, upon getting back into his body – and yes, he had been right. It'd been dumped depressingly unceremoniously, and there were cricks in his back and neck that hadn't been there before, he knew – and getting out of the shop again, he figured with annoyance that he might as well make himself useful and find the Kudo kid some new things to wear, since his old stuff was obviously useless to him now. Even if how that worked completely passed him by.

And if he just happened to come across Rukia or Orihime while he was out, then it'd just be his luck right? Wouldn't be his fault if he accidentally forgot to tell them the kid wasn't actually a real kid, after all...

Shinichi came to again doggedly, still wary of the – now shorter, please just don't let it get any shorter than that – chain that dangled, thankfully lifelessly, from his chest.

_If that never happens again, I'll be only too grateful_. He shuddered. He was supposed to be getting out of the hole, but he couldn't see any way out. He was supposed to not be panicking, but it was rather hard not to be afraid when you could literally see your life slipping away before your eyes.

But there had to be a way out. A way out that meant his chain stopped getting shorter, and that whatever was meant to happen when it ran out, simply didn't. He tried to remember what Kurosaki had said, but only came up with that Shinigami did things differently, and that they had. . . red soul ribbons? What kind of thing was a soul ribbon? And how was he supposed to see one to be able to tell if his was red or not?

He sighed. Leaned hesitantly back against the wall. He wasn't giving up. But going headlong into things he didn't understand at all wasn't his way of doing things. He needed to – to – _think_. This was one mystery that couldn't remain unsolved. Because if it did, it 'd mean that those men in black back there in Tropical Land had murdered him, and that was a truth he wasn't ready to accept just yet. Detectives weren't supposed to get murdered, they were supposed to miraculously survive against the odds and win, solving the crime along the way.

Red ribbons. Any link to the red string of fate that Ran and the Suzuki girl always cooed over? He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering.

_They're floating in front of him, all of them, and pure, snow white. It seems like gravity had deserted him, and everything was overthrown –_

He opened his eyes again, head rushing. Those had been ribbons. Not strings. But they'd been white. . . ? Definitely – all of them. Pure, snowy white, unblemished. Not a single one had been red.

"_Not-_

_-A_

_Single-_

_-One?"_

He froze. That hadn't been a simple echo. It had been more... thousands of voices, each and every single voice. Any. All.

"Who...?"

"_Everyone-_

_-and_

_Everything-_

_-every_

_Now-_

_-and_

_Every-_

_Then."_

Shinichi shook his head – it hurt, and made no sense. He leaned forward, chain clinking, took his head into his hands. Ran was waiting for him, and all he could do was be a useless lump at the bottom of a hole. The police needed the information he had in his head, and right now that head was not even in the same place as the mind it belonged to. His head hurt again, and he felt himself falling, dropping forward lifelessly onto the hard, unforgiving ground.

"_Won't you open your eyes to me yet – Kudo Shinichi."_

_Open my eyes?_ But they were open. Weren't they?

He put his hands up to his eyes, only to find that his eyes were, indeed, closed. There wasn't anything obstructing them, though, so why did it feel so difficult to open them?

"_You can't see if you don't open your eyes, Kudo Shinichi. The truths of the world must be seen to be known. Shin. Ichi."_

He forced his eyes open at that –

And was confronted by a tall figure holding a long, curved weapon, one that looked sharp enough to split the very air itself. They were covered from head to toe in a long black robe with cowl, which shadowed their face so deeply that no defining features could be seen at all. The one hand that was visible, however, was completely fleshed out, if pale enough to put him on edge. And apart from that, nothing – absolutely nothing – seemed definite.

Western vision of the Shinigami – Grim Reaper. Often seen to be malevolent, yet in tarot actually has the meaning of change, not death... Like the Japanese equivalent, escorted the dead to their afterlives.

"_Are you afraid-_

_Kudo Shinichi."_

He was. It was only a fool that wasn't afraid. Those who were afraid had the sense to know what they were heading into.

"_Can you see now-_

_Kudo Shinichi."_

Every voice, just like earlier. All of them. But his eyes _were_ open. He knew they were. So what was he supposed to - ?

He looked around.

"_Shinigami have red soul ribbons."_

"_To be a Shinigami, all you've got to do is get out of that there hole!"_

"_Not a single one? You can't see if you don't – "_

He reached out, closed his hand around cloth, and. . .

Opened his eyes.

...........

By the time Ichigo came back, it wasn't jus dark out – the shops had been shutting as he'd been turning back towards Urahara's. He hadn't been able to find much because of this, but at least it was better than nothing, and he'd been lucky enough to find both of the girls. Which had helped quite a lot at times – it was easier for them to go looking for kiddy clothes than him, especially when they were happy enough to do it on their own and forget about him, leaving him free to grab something to eat and drink before having to go back to waiting duty with a side of mild danger.

Mild, because the kid couldn't be that strong, right after coming into his spiritual powers. Heck, it was still only just over a day since he'd come! The brat was probably still trying to figure out what a soul ribbon _was_.

He was rather surprised, then, to find a smug-looking Jinta waiting for him outside the closed shop, leaning on his broom with a smirk on his face.

As soon as he'd got enough out of the kid to understand that the fuss was all over the Kudo kid down in the basement, he was in, through the shop, out of body and back in black, all in record time, to see –

Urahara, standing there right opposite Kudo, who was most definitely out of the pit, with his arms crossed. He was also dressed in shihakusho, just like Ichigo, but unlike Ichigo, did not have a lieutenant's arm band, which he'd been forced to wear, since they still wouldn't take him seriously without it. And then, of course, was the fact that Kudo had a still-unnamed zanpakuto as opposed to Ichigo's Zangetsu.

"Hey, no way you're out that quick!"

The other two turned to face him, Kudo looking smug and Urahara with his eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat, but definitely finding something funny at his expense.

"Like I said, Kurosaki-san! You always get places quickly if you use your head!"

Ichigo glared at Kudo, but tried his best to keep the reiatsu levels to a bare minimum – if nothing else, the guy was still a newbie, and was as weak and vulnerable as one, too.

"So," said the new Shinigami recruit. "Exactly how long did it take you to get out, if you thought I was quick?"

"The whole seventy-two hours, I'm afraid," put in Urahara, faking a feeling of sorrow into his voice which only served to anger Ichigo even more.

"Hey! He had help, and you didn't give me any! Besides, even before I trained with you, my sword was way bigger than his!"

Both of them stared at him incredulously. Slowly, Urahara's hand crept up to his head, where he started scratching.

"Hm. But I was sure that yours was at such an unwieldy length before because you couldn't reign in your spiritual powers – or was I wrong on that?"

"That-that doesn't matter! Mine's still bigger!"

Almost forgotten on the sidelines, the recruit groaned.

"Look, can I sort something out, Kurosaki? Right now? I really don't care. I – I want to go _home_."

At that, Urahara fell silent for a minute or two. Thinking. Then, the fan came out.

"Sounds like an idea to me, Kudo-kun. I'm sure we could arrange for that. You'll have to tell us where you want to be dropped off..."

"Hey – aren't you at least going to try and get him to shikai or something before throwing him out there?!"

"I could," Urahara concurred, "But that would take up time. Kudo-kun here isn't as intrinsically skilled as you, and hasn't had any previous experiences with being a Shinigami. At the moment, he needs to go home, preferably before they declare him dead or missing."

"But-!"

"You shouldn't worry so much, Kurosaki-san! He'll be watched over from the moment he leaves the shop!"

"I don't _want_ to be watched over. I'm not a kid any more!"

"And you won't need to be once you've reached shikai, Kudo-kun." The fan snapped shut. "Then, you'll be able to defend yourself. But before then, there'll be someone looking out for you. And even after that, it might be best if you sometimes had backup from time to time..."

Kudo's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Why?"

Ichigo grinning at ironic justice, they showed him. And the newest recruit of the Fourteenth finally freaked out.

About a couple of hours later, Shinichi was trailing behind Kurosaki, positively fuming. The _other_ boy wasn't only four feet tall again. Kurosaki didn't at least have to _lie_ to everyone he knew. Most of the people the other Shinigami-human hybrid knew were in on his secret, and it didn't need to be kept from them. He didn't have to set up a fake name and a completely new identity just to keep from being killed for real next time.

He growled under his breath as they reached Agasa-hakase's front door. It just wasn't fair.

The doorbell rung. The bell that he could no longer reach. Yet again, there was a glare aimed in Kurosaki's direction.

The professor opened the door, and looked at the older boy questioningly. He didn't even _see_ Shinichi any more!

"Delivery for you," Kurosaki said. The prat was still smirking, obviously finding this amusing. "C'mon, kid – I mean, _Kudo_. Speak up."

Agasa's eyes widened and he looked around, but not down. Shinichi gave a sigh of frustration, and kicked his new shoe against the paving.

"Down _here_, hakase. And you – I thought you and Urahara were the ones who said not to go telling the whole neighbourhood?"

_Damn_ it, but his voice was – was- ...No one was going to be able to take him seriously.

The professor finally looked down, to see Kudo Shinichi, physically aged six years old and mentally _still sixteen_, thank you, dressed entirely in kiddy clothes, which was all that would fit him at the moment. At least the t-shirt wasn't on show – it was the only one the other teen had got him, and it had _Blue's Clues_ all over it. Too mortifying even for words.

"Come now, boy, you did a good job and I'm sure Shinichi-kun will be very flattered when he gets back. But while you might be embarrassed, that's no way to talk to the person who's brought you here, is it?"

Mortified, Shinichi found himself quickly growing red, both from embarrassment and anger at the fact that Kurosaki had chosen then to start laughing. In response to the second, he kicked the guy hard on the leg. It didn't quite do the job of shutting him up, though.

"Hakase? It's me. Kudo Shinichi," he started to hiss. "Look, could we come inside? It's really not a good thing to be talking about this in the open like that! And _would you stop laughing!_"

Agasa started to look like he was about to put his stubborn face on, but Kurosaki – for once – comes to his rescue.

"S-sorry. Yeah, the kid's right – we should go inside with this. There're some other things we need to talk about than just his little problems."

"Thank you, I think – yes, please, hakase – and would you _stop_ that? I'm _serious_."

Kurosaki rolled his eyes. "Sheesh," he said as they crossed the threshold after the professor had let them in, "You really need to lighten up, Kudo. At least you don't have an inner hollow."

That earned him a glare. "And I _still_ say you should've _warned_ me about that before I agreed to anything! What if I _had_ taken as long as you?"

"I did warn you! And you wouldn't have done it if you'd known, and if you hadn't done it, then you'd probably be dead by now – properly dead, so shut up about it and be grateful you're still here, pipsqueak. And if you had," he added, in a lower and more serious tone, "we'd still be back at Urahara's."

"You – you-!"

He was half tempted to kick a little harder somewhere more likely to cause pain, but then Agasa-hakase interrupted them by clearing his throat.

"While I don't mind the company, I would like an explanation. I rather doubt that Shinichi-kun will like it when I tell him of how someone convinced a young child to pretend to be him, hm?"

Kurosaki crossed his arms, starting to look properly serious.

"The kid isn't pretending, mister. That's Kudo. Urahara found him half dead in Tropical Land. If Hat-and-Clogs hadn't found him, he _would_ be dead."

"You've got to believe me, hakase. There were these two men in black who were on the ride Ran and I were on – only later on, one of them was being obviously sneaky, so I went after him. Problem was, I forgot about the other guy, who hit me over the head and force-fed me a poison. It's a good thing it didn't work properly, and even then Urahara-san had a hard enough time – according to them, anyway. But I'm inclined to believe them."

Agasa still didn't seem convinced.

"But – Shinichi-kun's been missing for over a day, now... I bet you learned all that from the news and crime movies, didn't you?"

"What? No, I didn't! I was there! Kurosaki's even still got the clothes I went to Tropical Land in – you _have_ got them, haven't you?"

"Of course I have – what d'you think I'd do, forget them? What if you'd suddenly de-shrunk on the way here or something?"

_That_ got the professor's attention. Probably because it was spoken by someone who looked like they were older than six years old.

"Did you just say that he'd been shrunk? Kurosaki-kun, is it?"

Shinichi crossed his arms balefully.

"I am right here, you know. And yes, shrunk. Urahara's working on it, but that doesn't change the fact that right now I'm four feet tall instead of five foot seven. And damn _sick_ of being treated like I'm six again. I'm not. I'm sixteen, and I-"

The door was being knocked on hard, and both he and Kurosaki started slightly. But by the feel of the new presence... he sighed, head going into his hands.

"Ran."

The professor immediately wanted to know how he knew, and Kurosaki was all for ploughing on ahead and explaining, but he cut the older boy off.

"Ran's my best friend," he explained, "and I've been missing for well over a day since I told her I'd be straight back in Tropical Land. Of course she'd come over here – you're the only one close by that I trust well enough that I'd come to you if something this serious was happening – as evidenced by my presence here right now – especially since you're my next door neighbour and the one who's got my spare keys. Which I'd be after if I'd simply lost them or got myself attacked or something normal. Since right now my parents are off in America right now and visiting that old friend of 'Kaa-san's, you'd be the first person I'd go to and therefore the one Ran would be keeping tabs on. Only makes sense."

They both stared at him, and the knocking at the door continued into the silence.

"..._Shinichi?!_"

Still several weeks later saw Shinichi running from his lieutenant for the third time that week in Urahara's secret training area.

He was still Conan, whenever he wasn't in his Shinigami – and thus invisible – from. And he was still being followed around all of the time. Not always by the same person or people, either – sometimes it was Kurosaki, sometimes Kuchiki, sometimes the guy with the weird hair and tattoos, and sometimes someone else entirely. He was starting to hate it with a passion, and that was only made worse by the fact that he understood entirely why they did it. The hollows. . . he'd seen them, he'd heard them, and he'd felt them. There was still a rather large part of him that simply wanted to get the hell away as fast as he could. The only thing that'd stopped him was the fact that if he ran, then he'd only need to be watched over like the rookie he was even longer. And these people couldn't be spared – there were few enough of them in Soul Society as it was, after the war he'd been told about that'd happened when he'd been only twelve.

And yet right at this moment, he was running for his life – or so it felt like – with just about what seemed to be about half of Fourteenth Division watching on the sidelines, ducking and flash stepping to get out of the way when either of them got too close.

"...Bet you a hundred yen he's still not got it by the end of today," came the voice of one person out from the crowd.

There was an instant crowd reaction in the negative that he could hear even as he dodged yet another lazily flung, low-powered, _getsuga tenshou_.

"No way! Easy bet, idiot. Five hundred it takes his first hollow attack where he isn't held by his hand."

"Come on, guys – that's not fair. At least we know he's going to learn flash step really quickly, right?"

That would be Inoue Orihime-san, the girl who had the healing powers who was there for each his sessions. Luckily, she hadn't needed to use them all that often.

"That's only because he keeps running away!" shouted Ichigo, easily both keeping up with him and keeping just enough of a distance that it looked like Shinichi's efforts at running were paying off.

"Oi, Kudo! Stay still for a moment so he can hit you!"

Shinichi was half tempted to abandon Kurosaki and instead head over to the stands to hit the blue-haired Arrancar, but refuted that as being what some would call just plain stupid. Kurosaki might be stronger than the Arrancar, but Grimmjow was the type to actually fight back, and if he hadn't been automatically drafted into Fourteenth, he'd have been Eleventh for sure.

"_And that is a bad thing?_"

Shinichi gritted his teeth, but was otherwise unaffected by the voice in his head that had started to talk to him during fighting of almost any kind ever since donning his black uniform for the first time.

_Not for him, but for me? He's more powerful than I am._

He sensed Kurosaki disappearing from behind him and moving almost instantly to a position just to the right of him, and ducked just as Zangetsu would have crashed down on his skull, rolling out of the line of fire and aiming out a rapid kick to where the legs should have been before getting away again.

"_So you would let loose a criminal in your grasp, simply because they were more powerful than you?_"

_Of course not,_ duck, dodge, _but I know my own limits!_

"_And Kurosaki Ichigo is beyond them, as Grimmjow Jaegerjacques is also?"_

_Kurosaki's not – but Grimmjow'd_ kill _me_.

Kurosaki disappeared again, once more far too fast for his own senses to keep up with.

"_Kurosaki Ichigo is aiming to kill_."

Shinichi was brought up short by the unexpected and uncaring comment, coming back to himself only just quickly enough to tell when Kurosaki appeared right in front of him, not quickly enough to move. For the first time, though –

The clang of two swords meeting rang out in the training area. Faces only inches apart, Shinichi's eyes went wide while Kurosaki started to grin.

"Didn't you remember at all, Kudo? What I said before you even went down that hole? When you're a Shinigami – there's _no room for fear_."

He remembered, as the blades screeched and separated.

_I know what they want me to do – they want me to find your name. But I don't_ know _what you're called!_

The sword-spirit was silent as Kurosaki went back after him, and Shinichi was forced to raise his blade once more, suffering the loss of a good part of the blade.

"_You already know my name. . . Kudo Shinichi. It is with my every whisper, my every act, our every desire..."_

_But I don't understand!_

"_I am rarely seen and rarely heard. So very often hidden away and sometimes even forgotten altogether_."

_Riddles? How am I supposed to be helped by riddles in the middle of a fight?!_

"_And then sometimes, there are those who are simply afraid."_

_I'm not afraid!_

"_Then show me this, which is not fear, Kudo Shinichi_. _Say it. That which is my name. That which is –_"

Shinichi held himself straight, breathed in, and out, and opened his eyes calmly and defiantly and shouted to the crowds, to the ceiling, to the ones who didn't believe, to himself, to his blade.

_"Shinjitsu!"_

AN: I ... sort of knew this was going to be kinda long? Sort of. But maybe not this long. Oh, and I think I started writing it to the Shrek soundtrack songs.

Yes, that is his zanpakuto. That is it's name. And when thinking about it's appearance, I had in mind 'Death' from the Terry Pratchett books, and a drawing done by Docohoro ages ago.

More random characters will continue to appear as the series continues. Both from DC and Bleach sides. Oh, and if anyone's wondering about that small point, Shinichi's been in Fourteenth's company for several weeks by the time the last section starts. He's somewhat used to them by now, and acts differently among them than he would among normal DC/MK characters. He also still has the alias Edogawa Conan, and the glasses.

Please forgive lack of proper dividers. My usual isn't working for some reason.


End file.
